Erwise is an early discontinued

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

, and the first that was available for the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

. Released in April 1992, the browser was written for

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

computers running X and used the W3 common access library. Erwise was the combined master's project of four Finnish students at the

Helsinki University of Technology Helsinki University of Technology (TKK; ; , HUT in international usage) was a technical university in Finland. It was located in Otaniemi, Espoo in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and it was one of the three universities from which the modern d ...

(now merged into

Aalto University Aalto University (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the Helsinki School of Economic ...

): Kim Nyberg, Teemu Rantanen, Kati Suominen and Kari Sydänmaanlakka. The group decided to make a web browser at the suggestion of

Robert Cailliau Robert Cailliau (last name pronunciation: ajo born 26 January 1947) is a Belgian informatics engineer who proposed the first (pre-www) hypertext system for CERN in 1987 and collaborated with Tim Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web (jointly winni ...

, who was visiting the university, and were supervised by Ari Lemmke. The development of Erwise halted after the students graduated and went on to other projects.

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...

, the creator of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

, travelled to Finland to encourage the group to continue with the project. However, none of the project members could afford to continue with the project without proper funding. The name ''Erwise'' originates from ''otherwise'' and the name of the project group, ''OHT''.

Development

For the web to be popularized,

knew that what people wanted was a GUI-based browser – one that could target multiple

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s, and most importantly, be easy-to-use for the technologically challenged. At the time,

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

s were also confusing to some people that were not experienced with

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

History

* Extremely pre-documented (in Finnish). * Serious coding started around March 1992. * Alpha release available by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch—binaries only (sun4 works, decstation too, display requires Motif) as of 15 April 1992. * Source code released on www-talk August 92.

Characteristics

The following are significant characteristics of the browser: * It used a multi-font text. * The links of Erwise browser were underlined. To visit the links you had to

double click A double-click is the act of pressing a computer mouse button twice quickly without moving the mouse. Double-clicking allows two different actions to be associated with the same mouse button. It was developed by Tim Mott of Xerox Palo Alto Resear ...

on the links. * Erwise could execute multiple window operation, though the optional single window mode was also available. * Erwise could open local files. * Erwise had little English documentation. * Some of the buttons were for features that were not implemented. * Tim Berners-Lee would have continued with the works of Erwise. He could not do so because Erwise's code was documented in the Finnish language.

Criticism

Erwise crashed on some versions of

, which Berners-Lee attributed to poor Motif implementations.

References

Sources

* Berners-Lee, Tim: ''Weaving the Web'' .

External links

The source code
at

FUNET FUNET is the Finnish University and Research Network, a backbone network providing Internet connections for Finnish universities and polytechnics as well as other research facilities. It is governed by the state-owned CSC – IT Center for S ...

FTP archives {{Web browsers 1992 software Discontinued web browsers Finnish inventions Free software programmed in C History of the Internet POSIX web browsers Public-domain software with source code Software developed in Finland Software that uses Motif (software)